Diesel

In the north the land is corrugated three hills to every five kilometers...take my word on this. Bicycling was either top gear or bottom gear with nothing in between. There is a haze to the air, an excretion of the forest perhaps, but also smoke from the production of charcoal. The air smells faintly of it, and wood is stacked everywhere along the roadside.

My route was expedient but unwise. Traffic was minimal but almost all trucks, and meeting a truck coming from ahead was like having sand and smoke and diesel fumes literally flung in your face. The forest is cut back so that there is no shade on the road at all, and the heat after 11am was barely tolerable. Benin should be explored by bicycle on the back roads I now know, but I plunged ahead on the highway nonetheless. The highway is narrower than your average American residential street, narrower than two trucks and a bicycle should they all try to pass at once.

Futbal

Futbal

Futbal

Futbal

Futbal

written by  roel krabbendam on February 22, 2007 from Gberouboue, Benin
from the travel blog: Harmattan
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I spent my first night out of Dosso still in Niger, in a Germa village named Makani after I got an especially nice hello from a guy on the highway. I screeched to a stop and asked him if I couldn’t pitch my tent within the walls, but he had to summon Douwda Noma to communicate in French. Douwda is a young guy who went to work in Lome and picked up some French there. He arranged everything, showing me where I could place my tent and recognizing that perhaps I needed a bit of “repose”. First they brought me a pillow and a mat and a mattress for under the tent however, since they couldn’t accept that I might sleep on the ground! I went to sleep for a few hours and awoke to a hazy view of the moon and the sound of pounding mortars (2 or even 3 girls to a pestle), a TV, kids laughing, goats, birds, and crickets. The Germa sounded like music, a girl hummed a few lines of a song over and over pleasantly, a man issued orders: the sounds all blended like water in a stream, like this was a dream.

I found water and food next to the tent, manioc and onion sauce and couscous and green sauce, and it was too much for me to eat. A girl told me to save the manioc for morning, and took away the other pots. Later a younger guy showed me an area surrounded by mud brick where I could wash from a bucket, and then I went back to sleep. I left a kite for the kids and a little tapestry I had bought in Dosso for the cook, took some pictures of Douwda and the local crew, got an address to send them to, and was back on the road before it got hot.

River Niger

I reached Gaya in early afternoon, and found a store that sold sweetened yoghurt in bags: I can’t get enough of the stuff and downed three. The road follows the river for a bit and then it was the douane (customs) on the Niger side of the bridge.

River Niger

I didn’t have any paperwork from my entry at Assamaka, so I skipped that office and went right to a mountainous woman sitting at a plain wooden table who very efficiently checked me out of the country and wished me a bon voyage. I skipped customs on the Benin side too, and here an officer at a similar wooden table stamped my entry. I felt quite welcome.

Bridge to Malanville

At Malanville I downed (2) 60cl Coca-Colas, (2) yaourt Hollandais and a liter of water. Dehydration had apparently precipitated negative cerebral effects: who knows what I was thinking. All that sugar seems to just make the dehydration worse.

Abridged thinking

Motel Alfa Kouare

Salima Saka runs a very tidy place, made me a nice dinner of couscous and onion sauce with meat, and I really appreciated her sensibilities. I left early again to beat the heat.

The Africa Express minibus left 20 minutes later, full of passengers. The seats were just a little to close together for adequate knee space and the busses are designed with collapsible seats in the aisles, an idea I hope the airlines ignore or pay me obscene royalties to implement.

The taste

Giraffes

Guetto

He took me to his sister’s house in the huitieme chateau, the city apparently divided into 10 “chateaux” as well as other “quartiers”. The streets were wide and unpaved, the house a walled plot, and a forecourt for the car and the well, and then a living room draped in sheer pink fabric. Beyond that was private. Two bare wires were connected by hand to start the overhead fan. I played with the kids and took portraits of everyone while Guetto and his sister chatted, and then a girl brought us couscous, and then we left to visit relatives further down the street.

Guetto and Niece

There the house was more formidable, birdcages and an expensive car in a very large courtyard and a very large and comfortable living room. I met two older ladies, and a guy just back from 7 years in Pennsylvania: Lauren. Lauren spoke French with an American accent and English as if he was born in Pennsylvania, and he was on the phone with his American wife now in England with their son, visiting her mother. He was overseeing the completion of his new house, a ten year project left unfinished while he was gone, so that he could move his family back to Niger. I told him the change was pretty drastic and he agreed, but writing this now I think things might be all right for them. His house shares a quartier with the American embassy, Americans live nearby, his family is obviously wealthy and well-connected, and though he is only 33, Lauren seems to have a head for business.

Guetto's sister

We took a long nap, went to the Cyber Café for some quick email, got another cup of “Lipton” on the street and then went back to Guetto’s sister’s house, to hang out on the street as if it were a beach until it got dark. The dust was thick from all the passing cars, and the headlights cut wide arcs of light as they passed. Guetto and his friends washed and then prayed in a small prayer stand that I now recognize as ubiquitous, and then we had cassava and sauce for dinner before walking to Lauren’s house to spend the night.

Huitieme Chateau, 8pm

Tracy Chapman was on the cassette player when we arrived and she was still singing the next afternoon when I finally left. The only interruption was to listen to a curious cassette of some military hearings concerning the execution without trial of thirteen suspected terrorists. I could not understand when the incident occurred, but several guys in the group seemed to know every word of the proceedings by heart, and the importance of the event was obvious. I surmised that it related to the civil war and Tuareg rebellion of not too many years ago.

Huitieme Chateau, 8pm

I went to bed after a shower: a mattress on the floor of the unfinished house. It brought back warm and fuzzy feelings of renovating a certain condo for two miserable years in Boston. The mosquitoes were intolerable and malaria was on my mind. The others continued chatting late into the night, enjoying the cooler air and Guetto’s unexpected visit and of course, Tracy Chapman. I slept pretty well, considering.

written by  roel krabbendam on February 18, 2007 from Niamey, Niger
from the travel blog: Harmattan
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Lauren agreed to give us all a tour of the city in his car, and I bought him some gasoline. At almost $2.00/liter it was the least I could do. The scale of the city is nothing like I expected, exactly as in Agadez. There are large buildings, they are spread far apart, and I never felt any sense of urbanity at all. The Kennedy bridge (photography not allowed!) is…just a bridge. The railings were lined almost entirely with drying laundry. I had always imagined my first view of the River Niger would be more momentous.

The visa was unexpectedly ready exactly when promised at the embassy, Lauren got us to the gare on time, there was place left on the minibus for Guetto and I, we wished Lauren success with his house and his family and his cash flow, and just like that we were gone. There were still no giraffes visible in the reserve. I came back to my hotel room three hours later to find the locks forcefully removed with obvious damage to the steel door and everything wide open. The hotel staff was in a flurry. The police chief arrived.

I had not returned the night before, and the hotel staff didn’t know if I was in the room or not: it was they who had forced the lock. I never imagined I had walked off with the only key, I was insensitive to the idea that my unexpected delay in Niamey might concern the hotel, and I certainly never imagined that my disappearance would be reported all the way up to the governor. The chief was there, I believe, to make sure I paid for the door. Nothing was stolen, nothing was lost, and the repairs cost me 3000 CFA ($6.00) as far as I can tell at this writing. I’m still apologizing to absolutely everyone for the “derangement”.

written by  roel krabbendam on February 18, 2007 from Dosso, Niger
from the travel blog: Harmattan
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Grannery

The book goes on to expose the immorality of food aid programs that bankrupt local economies and insure financial dependence, the destruction wreaked by the corporate structure operating free of governmental constraints, the tremendous support especially large corporations get from the US government (that would be our tax dollars), both overtly and covertly, in penetrating and dominating foreign markets, and the role of arms and militarism in protecting the status quo.

As the balance of power increasingly favors corporations and the concentration of wealth, the security of the majority world-wide diminishes. These effects are felt even in the United States, where regions race to the bottom to attract business, the divide between rich and poor continues to increase, and the buying power of the majority continues to diminish. The status quo is eroding our own security. Globalization means that security for the factory worker in Guatemala or the computer scientist in India is ever more inextricably tied to our own security at home: we are all seeking the same work.

I look forward to an American government committed to real security instead of a “war against terrorism”, that favors the language of international cooperation over the language of dominance, and that understands the link between national and global interests. It’s almost enough to consider becoming an American citizen.

written by  roel krabbendam on February 18, 2007 from Dosso, Niger
from the travel blog: Harmattan
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I have had memorable meals in my life, some simple and some grand: a blowfish we caught and cooked off Cape Cod when I was a kid comes to mind, some wine and bread and cheese with my mom when I was a teenager, a vegetable tagine cooked in the sand at Casablanca 28 years ago, a Russian meal with a lot of frozen vodka in North Carolina in 1984, a Japanese meal with lots of hot sake in Lima, Peru a year earlier, a fondue I had in Switzerland in 1990 (booze again), a birthday meal Polly cooked me once on the hottest day of the year in Cambridge, Massachusetts, sushi fests at my sister’s house…the circumstances and the people and the food and sometimes the occasion conspired to elevate the experience beyond simply “dinner”.

Nassir making sahara bread

Lakhdar spent an incredibly long time stirring a bowl of dough that was then poured on a bed of hot sand and embers and covered with hot embers. The resultant flat loaf was then scraped of cinder, broken into little bits, and mixed into a bowl of ingredients I do not remember (I’m hoping Lakhdar will help me out here with some comments). This is a traditional meal with a name I also neglected to write down (help me, someone!). Everyone ate out of the common bowl, with Talla pulling pieces of mutton off the bone and tossing it into each person’s quadrant: a ritual I rather liked.

Tea

Tea pots

Ahmed told me that for him the ritual is a soothing addiction, something I thought not too different from my own love affair with coffeehouses and cappucinos.

Dutch cows grabbing a tan

Manioc is a staple in Benin, much as yucca is a staple in Peru: you find huge stacks of this very large root by the roadside wherever you go. It is soaked and then boiled, and accompanied it seems with a sauce made of onions, tomatoes, chili peppers and oil. I had my best day of biking when I ate manioc for breakfast and I truly believe it is related. I had a bit of a Yucca fries addiction in Peru but I did not see Manioc fries here in Benin…could be a whole new culinary direction for them here.

Salad

Vegetable display

Sheep at Kherfi Freres

Coca Cola

I thanked Nassirou for his tremendous kindness, turned down the offer to continue on to Cotonou with him, took his picture and promised to send him a copy and then rode off to find a hotel. Within minutes of leaving Nassirou, I met Sonteijmane Gorba, but that’s a bit of a mouthful and his friends call him Guetto. After 5 days together I now comfortably count myself among those friends.

Because I hadn’t called since leaving Agadez and it was too early to do so at the moment, I wanted to send Polly and Mia an email before I found a hotel and went to sleep. I asked randomly for an internet café and when I found it closed was taken in hand by the sign painter across the street, the aforementioned Guetto. His boss called a friend who had a computer at home, and Guetto led me all the way across town to his house, waited outside while I sat in the living room and wrote my messages, and then led me even further to a hotel where he though I would be comfortable.

He told me to come visit after I had slept, but I was so disoriented that it was only by accident that I rode my bike past his studio the next day, where he waved me over to say hello. He decided to give me a tour of the vicinity by bicycle, and this is how I got the opportunity to visit Darey Malki, a utopian agrarian community started in 1953 by two idealistic friends.

Family

Solar Array

Guetto and I biked back to Dosso together, I treated him to dinner, and we decided to go to Niamey together to get my visa for Benin.

Solar Array